that raises in important point - as I understand it falling better described as collapsing or fainting. After all, a 'fall' can be standing straight and tipping over (wrong) as much as the knees giving out as when you collapse.

In the Square and Body School the action of "Falling" is often described as either "falling in a vertical position" or "falling across the floor". It is however often practiced as one person falling forward or backward onto a person that breaks the fall. My students are all trained in falling and "falling". They are often tested by somebody falling towards them. They learn to have no fear of falling and "falling" when practiced this way.

but do you use the falling forward or backward (tilting) in dancing at all? I thought not...

Yes, in the Body School it is done to a small degree. It is normally only taught to very high level couples but that is done. It is something that is practiced on a regular basis and part of the basic understanding in the Body School.

but do you use the falling forward or backward (tilting) in dancing at all? I thought not...

Yes, in the Body School it is done to a small degree. It is normally only taught to very high level couples but that is done. It is something that is practiced on a regular basis and part of the basic understanding in the Body School.

DSV

I remember it well... the hours, days, months before the "Oh! Yeah! That."

Logged

The most beautiful part of the dance is often found in between the steps... and in the movement within the stillness.

Been thinking a little about this, and how our coach was always barking at us initially for being "right on top of the music", and rushing-yet-not.

It's like the Shapiro Delay in the concept of gravitational time dilation. There's a side effect when going from an excited state to a base state, and it generally varies when closer to masses of increased potential, creating a more geodesical trajectory.

I could be so wrong on that, but I was bored, and doing a little side-research on a movie I was watching. Weird how it turned me right around to here.

So lets go with that TD - can you define the difference between lower and fall? To me I think it is simple -a lower is to maintain muscle tone while decending (becaues you still have muscle tone that direction can be with gravity or at an angle to it). However, a fall is to release muscle tone and go with gravity. the direction is along the line of gravitational pull (plus the direction imparted by the preceding activitry).

If you are standing on a foot on "platform" (foot position 2), you will lower the heel until it is flat on the floor by moving from foot position 2 to 3 to 4, in other words you have lowered. If you are not standing on a foot and describing the free foot, you will move from foot position 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, in other words you have lowered. You have moved from an "up" position to a "neutral" position and this action is called lowering. The action is called to "lower".

Down:

In the “Body School of Thought” this is called “Division” or “to Divide”. You divide the legs like if you were dividing two sticks. The dividing of the two sticks causes the body to decrease in height.

One of the great ladies in the “Body School of Thought” says “You don’t go down to move, your movement takes you down”.

So when the legs are “Divided” you end up “Down”. In this case we in the “Body School of Thought” describe the action of what we do and not the end result of what was done.

So when you “Divide” your legs, you end “Down” in what we call a “Division”

I think using these terms, we're saying that "falling" horizontally across the floor causes our body to take a step* (in order to prevent actually face-planting on the floor). When our body has taken the step, a "division" occurs in our feet which causes our bodies to be "down".

*Bringing in Elise's and TD's word, "lowering", it seems that this is the state in which the legs are when the body has taken a step to prevent the fall. I think it's very important to note here that lowering (by Elise's and TD's definition) is always a result of an action, and never an action in itself. I used to "lower" before every movement (like my first coach asked me to) and I injured my knees and ankles for life. I have still seen coaches teach their students to lower before any movement, and surprise surprise, those students are wearing knee braces after a few months. I even saw a lady having to put glitter and stones on her knee brace so that she could wear it for her competition.

Is division technique used in other schools of thought besides Body? I was under impression that Traditional school uses non-division technique (i.e lower to move). But what about the other schools of thought. I once asked a coach about concern of knee/ankle injury during lower/down. He said injury is more likely if twisting of knee/ankle occurs during lower/down vs not twisting. I don't think this coach was of Body school. Anyway, I was wondering how prevalent division technique is, especially with high level dancers.